The Lighted Way eBook

“As regards what I said to you about the Count,”
Mr. Weatherley continued, after a moment’s hesitation,
“remember who I am that give you the advice,
and who you are that receive it. Your bringing-up,
I should imagine, has been different. Still, a
young man of your age has to make up his mind what
sort of a life he means to lead. I suppose, to
a good many people,” he went on, reflectively,
“my life would seem a common, dull, plodding
affair. Somehow or other, I didn’t seem
to find it so until—­until lately.
Still, there it is. I suppose I have lived in
a little corner of the world, and what seems strange
and wild to me might, after all, seem not so much
out of the way to a young man with different ideas
like you. Only, this much I do believe, at any
rate,” he went on, buttoning up his coat and
watching the taxicab which was coming along the street;
“if you want a quiet, honest life, doing your
duty to yourself and others, and living according
to the old-fashioned standards of honesty and upright
living, then when you have had that dinner with the
Count Sabatini to-night, forget him, forget where he
lives. Come back to your work here, and if the
things of which the Count has been talking to you
seem to have more glamor, forget them all the more
zealously. The best sort of life is always the
grayest. The life which attracts is generally
the one to be avoided. We don’t do our
duty,” Mr. Weatherley added, brushing his hat
upon his sleeve reflectively, “by always looking
out upon the pleasurable side of life. Good evening,
Chetwode!”

He turned away so abruptly that Arnold had scarcely
time to return his greeting. It seemed so strange
to him to be talked to at such length by a man whom
he had scarcely heard utter half a dozen words in
his life, that he was left speechless. He was
still standing before the window when Mr. Weatherley
crossed the pavement to the waiting taxicab.
In his walk and attitude the signs of the man’s
deterioration were obvious. The little swagger
of his younger days was gone, the bumptiousness of
his bearing forgotten. He cast no glance up and
down the pavement to hail an acquaintance. He
muttered an address to the driver and stepped heavily
into the taxicab.

CHAPTER XIII

CASTLES IN SPAIN

Ruth welcomed him with her usual smile—­once
he had thought it the most beautiful thing in the
world. In the twilight of the April evening her
face gleamed almost marble white. He dragged a
footstool up to her side.

“Little woman, you are looking pale,”
he declared. “Give me your hands to hold.
Can’t you see that I have come just at the right
time? Even the coal barges look like phantom boats.
See, there is the first light.”

She shook her head slowly.

“To-night,” she murmured, “there
will be no ships, Arnold. I have looked and looked
and I am sure. Light the lamp, please.”